


a work in progress

by rjosettes



Series: Salem Academy of Sorcery [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Alternate Universe - Magic, F/F, F/M, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-29 04:53:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5116298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rjosettes/pseuds/rjosettes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Magic isn’t like archery. Allison had only one real coach for that, a friend of the family, and from her she learned everything - the muscles she needed to strengthen and the exercises to help, how to adjust for wind speed and direction or the height and distance of the target, every draw worth knowing. She’d been on her way to being great when the bracelets came off and she got The Talk.</p><p>What she’s learned at Salem is that magic needs many teachers because it isn’t one thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a work in progress

**Author's Note:**

> Part of the Salem Academy of Sorcery 'Verse! Check out the collection for more.

Magic isn’t like archery. Allison had only one real coach for that, a friend of the family, and from her she learned everything - the muscles she needed to strengthen and the exercises to help, how to adjust for wind speed and direction or the height and distance of the target, every draw worth knowing. She’d been on her way to being great when the bracelets came off and she got The Talk.

What she’s learned at Salem is that magic needs many teachers because it isn’t one thing. The first time she intentionally changes her yellow number two pencil fire engine red, the click is immediate. Her first thought, beaming down at such a simple thing, was that this was going to be easy. That confidence lasted all of an hour, when her next class practiced heat dissipation of heat with beakers of warm water. Allison found the string inside of herself, taut and laser-focused, and plucked it. The other girls at her table, the only ones willing to sit with her, laughed as a sphere of ice formed in the center of the water and bobbed to the top. She’d stared at her failure while the students around her looked bored, watching the alcohol in their thermometers dip lower.

Luckily, most of what was expected of her in class those first few months had been note-taking and quizzes on theory. A good few of the students were just as new to magic as she’d been, unaware it even existed until they’d gotten their letters, and Allison had diligently thrown herself into mastering the basics. Her roommate, an unbelievably chatty girl who quickly found a gaggle of friends, was out often enough for her to practice without the feeling of being watched - of someone over her shoulder anticipating failure. She catches herself rubbing at the skin of her wrists more than once, staring at the skin that looked no different than the rest but still felt wrong, bare. Her magic itself, wound tight at her core where it hid for eight years, had stayed calmly in place when her aunt removed the bracelets under her grandpa’s watchful eye. Nothing changed except the feeling of imbalance. She’d spent the summer sweating in long sleeves, covering the skin she was no longer used to seeing.

Things had barely improved by the time Jackson caught her putting her makeup back on poolside, scattered containers on the hard plastic bench. She’d forgotten to take it off before swimming, and her face had been a wreck before she scrubbed off the smears and started over.

“What are you doing?” he’d asked, like he’d never seen a girl applying mascara. Allison had been afraid he was going to tease her, though he hadn’t yet. For someone so popular with a father all tangled up in council affairs, he’d been surprisingly kind. “You can’t wear regular makeup into the pool. That’s  
what glamours are for.”

“Lydia doesn’t look much like much of a swimmer.” 

Jackson’s laugh had been easy, none of the strain she heard in others’ voices, and it’d made her smile despite herself. “Couldn’t if her life depended on it. She’d have to calm down enough to skip to land. Not all glamour magic is lipstick and eye shadow.” He’d taken down his own, letting her see the telltale signs of teenage hormones on his face. “And it won’t melt off in the sun, either.” There were tiny freckles across the bridge of his nose, dozens if not hundreds of them, and Allison’s tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth even after he’d covered them again.

Between swimming and practicing this new spellwork, it’s no wonder they fell together as easily as they did. Jackson’s magic is just like his glamours - paper-thin and always there, broadcast to the world. It’s easy for him to change the surface of things entirely, but nearly impossible to affect the substance. He doesn’t seem insecure about it at first, explaining that the Whittemores take care of keeping magic in order, not needing much themselves. When she finds out he’s adopted, that David and Helen have twice as much magic as Jackson does, she kisses him hard without explaining why. He doesn’t need to overflow with magic to make a huge difference in her own.

The helpful thing about learning from Jackson is that he’s spent his life learning to spread what magic he has around. To keep up appearances, to use magic for anything deeper than everyday, casual charms - everything is an uphill battle for him, magically. Allison’s still unsure how deep her magic runs, scared to reach down and grasp from the bottom for fear of consequences. Salem is quick to show the first years the disasters that can even a moderate amount of untamed magic can cause. Allison hasn’t even tried to skip yet, in case she ends up somewhere in the Andes, missing a limb or two that she’s left behind.

Still, she has more magic than Jackson, and he tries his best to help her loosen the could of it inside her. “Not everything is about a bullseye,” he reminds her when he can. He fixes the doorknob when Allison blows it clean out of the doorframe instead of turning it from afar. It’s a work in progress.

The more time that Allison spends with Jackson, the more she sees of Lydia. Perfect, prodigy Lydia, finishing her math homework while she critiques the fashion choices of anyone passing their table, away from direct sunlight but easily visible. Her mouth is a weapon, in the traditional ways as well as magically. She has a tendency to occupy it when Jackson’s being rude, and they’re all better off for it in the end. A direct insult from Lydia Martin is likely to become a curse, something the two of them knew long before coming to school.

“My father washed my mouth out for swearing once.” It’s her favorite story to tell. “He didn’t catch me, but Jackson has suddenly developed ears and a tail. It was clear he’d been a jackass.” The glances shared between them are always warm in moments like that. They make Allison glad that they’ve worked out something for themselves - something that doesn’t make Lydia uncomfortable for the sake of Jackson’s happiness.

Sort of dating Lydia comes with sleepovers, a preteen phenomenon Allison didn’t get any experience with when she was actually a preteen. Her family has never been stationary for long, forever chasing some invisible target that Allison can only see in hindsight. Here at Salem, she’s hit the jackpot - hundreds of witches in one place, some of them representing old, powerful bloodlines. Cora Hale is from a particularly tight-knit one of those bloodlines; she also happens to be Lydia’s roommate. Once a month or so, all four Hales take a weekend to visit home, triggering the 'coast is clear’ text that signals a sleepover night.

It’s only when she spends hours on end in private with Lydia that Allison notices her using magic constantly. She whistles the door open at Allison’s knock, locking it behind her the same way without looking up. She dries her nails with a gentle gust of breath and flushes the toilet by informing it that she’s done, never touching the handle despite the fact that something like six people ever use it. It takes weeks to realize Lydia’s phone’s voice recognition function is turned off to save battery; the song shuffling, answering calls, and dictating texts are all the result of Lydia’s magic, inextricably linked to her dangerous, very kissable mouth.

“This is safe, right?” Allison asks her time and again, burrowed in the unbelievably fluffy comforter on Lydia’s bed. It feels safe, surrounded and toasty warm, gentle kisses that don’t press past what Allison is ready for. What feels safe isn’t always, though, and she might know that better than anyone.

“You’re not the first person I’ve kissed,” Lydia tells her, sighing. “No one’s died yet.” She can’t hold a straight face when Allison is suitably alarmed, her laugh shiver-inducing a very non-magical way. “I promise, if anything happens to you because of these lips, you’re going to like it. They like you.”

In the morning, she wakes to an empty bed still tousled beside her. Lydia is at the stool in front of her vanity, pushing back her hair with a soft headband until it’s out of her face. “I’m putting on my face,” she says, clear as a bell, straight into the mirror.

“Okay?” Allison mumbles, still rubbing the morning blur from her eyes, and Lydia visibly jumps. “Whoa. Sorry?”

Her flawless face, when she turns over her shoulder, is flushed unevenly pink in some places and washed out in others. Her eyebrows are so fair they’re barely there. She bites at her pale bottom lip, drawing the blood to it until it looks something like her everyday color. “I didn’t know you were up.”

“Who were you talking to?” Allison cranes her neck, looking for Lydia’s phone on the freakishly clean surface of the vanity. Jackson is up this early sometimes, practicing for one of his many sports. It’s nowhere in sight, though, and when she checks for her own, Lydia’s is charging right beside it.

The brief glimpse of Lydia’s bare face is gone when Allison turns back. “My magic, obviously.” In the mirror, Allison watches her lick her lips, rich mauve following the path of her tongue. She pouts her lips, considering. “How is it going to know what I’m doing if I don’t tell it?”

Every time Allison watches the process she notices something new. The little uptilt at the end of a hum that wings Lydia’s eyeliner for her. Quiet cursing that causes her blemishes to disappear and her eyebrows to darken and fill out slightly. Lydia’s vanity top is spotless because the vanity itself is empty; she’s never owned any dusty powders or smearing creams.

They try to see if Allison can channel her magic in the same way, but Allison’s already hyper-focused magic is even more dangerous when she tries to push it through her pursed lips. Lydia fixes the door when it comes off the hinges. It’s still a work in progress.

The only person to make a real dent in the problem is a bit of a surprise to everyone involved. Jackson absolutely does not want Allison spending quality time with Stiles Stilinski. They share a house, rooms only a few doors down from one another, but they’re not exactly the best of friends. Lydia is more vaguely uninterested than unfond. Funnily enough, Allison might not have met Stiles for ages if it hadn’t been for the two of them. Lydia had immersed herself totally in an Arithmancy project and refused to meet on the grounds, and Allison had ended up alone with Jackson in his room for the first time. Even Stiles implying that Jackson was getting laid wasn’t enough to call a friendly truce between the two of them. 

Stiles’s magic is wild and unfocused, like it’s been running around unsupervised for a long time. It has, apparently, since neither of his parents knew anything about magic. She’s not sure if she envies or pities him for those years of spontaneous magic that the other students describe, the experiences she sidestepped thanks to the dampening bracelets she’d had applied as a 'birthday present’ when she turned five. She’d had just as many strange, unexplained happenings in her childhood, but at least she’d never had to feel like they might be her fault.

The only part of Stiles with any focus is his intense research stints, like a muscle that spasms from time to time, locking him into one gear. Between all of his reading on magic and their radically different approaches, they make great study and practice partners. Allison struggles to get Stiles to focus long enough to aim his magic more accurately; Stiles tries to imbue her with the impulsivity of magic, less cerebral and more visceral. They both improve slowly, and Jackson complains a lot, at first.

Lydia and Jackson both take a turn for the better when the change in Allison’s magic starts to benefit them. Lydia’s dress tears on a bolt in a bench at the park and Allison fixes it seamlessly, able to focus on both appearance and strength of the mend. It takes a lot of mental imagery - all of the cheesy cliche glowing balls of yellow light - but she warms her cold feet before shoving them between Jackson’s legs while cuddling. It’s not much, and she won’t be volunteering for any demonstrations in class soon, but she doesn’t break any more doors. Maybe it will always be a work in progress. That’s okay with her.


End file.
